[2][3] The society hosts a biennial meeting, supports off-year workshops, runs a monthly newsletter, and offers various types of academic prizes.
[6] Recruiting Richard Burian to co-organize, Grene received funding in 1981 from the Council of Philosophical Studies to run a seminal meeting in 1982 at Cornell University.
[8] In a footnote of a paper analyzing the history of philosophy of biology, the first 1983 meeting was stated as occurring at Virginia Tech.
[9] Regardless, it was decided thereafter that a society should be founded to officially organize regular conferences that can bring together current research on the history, philosophy, and social studies of biology.
ISHPSSB was officially named at the University of Western Ontario meeting in 1989 and its bylaws and governance were formalized in 1990.
Other individuals and events that were formative for the society included William C. Wimsatt and the 1977 Council for Philosophical Studies Summer Institute on "Biological and Social Perspectives on Human Nature" in Colorado.
[1] ISHPSSB is noted as one of the few prominent interdisciplinary societies that strive to put scientists and philosophers in the same room.
The first few meetings of the society were thus informal and involved a changing mix of biologists, historians, philosophers, and social scientists organized around thematic sessions to break through barriers that block collaboration and mutual understanding.
As Maienschein recounted, David Hull stated his vision in 1991 that ISHPSSB "is a place where everybody can come and feel included.
[13][9] Celebrated for its informality, inclusivity, and interdisciplinarity, the society has experienced "uncontrollable growth," thus presenting difficult logistic challenges for meeting organizers.
In 2017, the main conference was hosted in a South American country for the first time in the society's history, at University of São Paulo, Brazil.